Cursed Love: A Wicked Demon Tale

by Reed, Kristabel

  At an intersection, Nikki turned right, though she couldn’t have said why, other than it felt like she needed to.

  They crossed to the end of the street, where a panoramic view of the Carillo compound was laid out before them. It was huge, Nikki saw, looking from one end of the small valley where the compound lay nestled to the other, every square inch brightly lighted. More lights illuminated that spot than in the entire town.

  There were no shadows, but she couldn’t see anyone walking in the lights, either. No one was patrolling the area or playing along the grounds. Maybe this was the back of the house? Shouldn’t there be guards at the gates and all? From this distance, she couldn’t hear anything, either.

  With her hand in Cooper’s, she tightened her fingers around his for a brief moment. He didn’t say anything, didn’t comment on the view before them or ask her what she felt. Nikki looked up at him to find him watching her.

  But she didn’t head in that direction, toward the compound; instead she continued along the street and stopped before a nondescript storefront.

  “What?” Cooper asked quietly.

  Nikki didn’t answer, couldn’t. She had no words to describe what she felt. The feeling from the shop absorbed her, saturating her senses. Evil. Malicious. Vengeful.

  Cooper’s fingers tightened on her hand, and she let the warmth of his touch comfort her. In words, Nikki couldn’t explain what was wrong; she only knew that this innocuous shop, this seemingly deserted store, held answers to questions she needed to ask.

  A shutter lay partly open to the inside, where Nikki could just see a pair of blue candles flickering in the light autumn wind. She shivered as she looked in, though it was a very comfortable eighty degrees outside.

  The plaque by the door read “Espiritualista,” and she didn’t need Cooper to translate what that meant. Why should a spiritualist stir up such emotions in her?

  “I want to go in,” she announced, tearing her gaze from the window.

  “Why?” Cooper demanded, his eyes narrowed. “Do you think this espiritualista can tell you more than Taima has?”

  “I think,” Nikki began slowly, “that whoever is behind that door has answers I need. Cooper.” She sighed, unable to put into words her feelings, “I can’t explain it; I just need to go in and see her. Or him,” she added with a shrug, her eyes drawn back to the spiritualist’s shop.

  “Do you feel it?” Cooper demanded. “Or does Al feel it?”

  Nikki whipped around to stare at him in dumfounded shock. “Al?”

  “I named the demon.” Cooper half shrugged, half grinned. “Thought it would be more prudent to refer to it as Al than vicious-demon-monster who has my woman in its clutches.”

  Nikki choked out a laugh, some of the tension draining from her. She blinked several times and shook her head, leaning against Cooper. It felt good to laugh, if only for a moment. Good to have that tension leave her, to unwind from her nerves. His arm was reassuringly hard around her shoulders, and Nikki took several heartbeats to savor that comfort.

  Leaning up to quickly kiss him, Nikki said, “Maybe I should go in myself.”

  The words were barely out of her mouth when his look stopped anything else she wanted to say. Smiling at the hard, uncompromising gaze of his, Nikki amended, “Maybe not.”

  Cooper nodded once, clearly not feeling the need to say anything. His hold on her hand was firm and encouraging when they entered the espiritualista’s shop together.

  Chapter Twelve

  A bell jangled over the door when Cooper opened it and ushered her in, but no one rushed to greet them. Nikki looked around the small room; two long benches flanked opposite sides, but she opted to stand.

  The interior of the spiritualist’s shop looked less like those Nikki had visited in the States and more like a candle shop. Blue candles lighted every available surface, and Nikki wondered if the color held some sort of significance. From her experience, she knew blue to be soothing, but didn’t feel soothed in this room.

  The room itself had been painted blue as well, a dark shade reminding her of twilight. The candles cast shadows over the entirety of the small area, making the entrance feel smaller and closed in. Several low-lighted lamps sat on end tables piled high with books. Her rudimentary Spanish, and the tell-tale covers, looked like they were on angels, demons, dreams, past lives, and karma.

  The lamps did little to detract from the closed-in feeling, but at least cast enough light for her to see the rough wood planks that made up the building’s walls. A short hallway led to a backroom, where Nikki could hear a low murmur of voices, but couldn’t make out anything specific.

  She wanted to leave.

  Part of her really wanted to get out of the small shop and head back to the hotel—hell, even back to the airport. She didn’t like it in here; the raw, negative energy of the place throbbed through her head, directly over her left eye. She felt it twitch, but tried not to let any other emotion or reaction show—she knew Cooper watched her carefully.

  “Maybe we should get out of here,” Cooper offered quietly, as if he read her mind.

  Nikki wanted to take him up on his offer, almost agreed, but shook her head. She may have wanted to leave Valle Arriba this second and never return, but she needed answers more. She’d spent her entire life searching for answers, and now that they were here, she couldn’t turn back. She needed to know what this thing was and how to exorcise it.

  “No,” she said firmly. “I really want to meet this guy.”

  Cooper nodded and held up a table tent and turned it to show her the words, neatly written in Spanish. “Then we should have a seat and wait for Narciso, our local spiritualist.”

  “Narciso,” Nikki repeated, and they sat on one of the benches.

  Fidgeting, Nikki tapped her fingers along her thigh, her back ramrod straight as she tried to make herself comfortable on the wood bench. Was it the energy in this room, this village? Or was it more, something in here she didn’t recognize that somehow connected to her demon? If it was the latter, how did she hope to find it?

  Was it similar to the one Cooper had taken from that man who’d tried to kill her on the ranch? The wooden rectangle necklace he’d hidden from the sheriff had meant nothing to her; Nikki had felt a low hum vibrating along it, a bit of energy, but it hadn’t meant anything to her.

  And that man had changed; he’d transformed, according to Cooper. Nikki remembered only vague impressions of what had happened—had that talisman been some sort of trigger?

  Just then, two men walked out of the private back room. One, who looked like the customer, held a paper in his hands and didn’t so much as glance at her and Cooper. The other had to be Narciso.

  Tall and lean, he reminded Nikki of a cowboy with his weathered face, crooked nose that had been broken more than once, and rough, scared hands. His eyes were a piercing green that rooted her to the spot. He didn’t look like a spiritualist; he looked like…Nikki wasn’t certain what he did look like, but he certainly didn’t look like a new age mystic.

  “Hello,” Narciso said in heavily accented English.

  Before Nikki could utter a response, or even decide how to respond, Cooper stood. He moved so fast she didn’t see him move, but suddenly he stood between her and Narciso, blocking the other man from even laying eyes on her. Slowly standing behind him, Nikki hadn’t fully appreciated Cooper’s body in such a way before this moment, but now wasn’t the time to do so.

  Pity.

  “You don’t have to stay if you fear me,” Narciso said with a bland smile at Cooper. Neither the smile nor the words seemed to comfort Cooper, who rocked back on his heels and looked ready—either for an attack or to attack.

  “However,” Narciso continued in a cool, even voice that could have got lost in a crowd, “I believe your woman is very curious about my powers.”

  Subtly putting her hand on Cooper’s back, Nikki nodded. Cooper may not have been in a position to see her assent, but Narciso did and stretched his
lips into a semblance of a smile.

  “It’s okay,” Nikki whispered, under no illusion Narciso couldn’t hear them. “I’ll be all right.”

  Cooper looked sharply at her then returned his attention to the man before them.

  “I have Al,” she said with a slight smile. Repressing a shudder, even as that energy shot through her, pulsing directly behind her left eye, Nikki slipped her fingers into Cooper’s, squeezing tightly. “And I have you.”

  Cooper gave the barest of nods, so brief she’d have missed it if she hadn’t been looking at him so intently. “I’ll only be a breath away,” he promised.

  With one final deep breath, she released Cooper’s hand and followed the spiritualist into the back room. She didn’t look over her shoulder at Cooper, but she heard his sharp intake of breath and knew he wasn’t happy with her choice. Nikki wasn’t exactly happy, either, but she needed to do this.

  There were no windows in this room, or none that she could see behind the heavy black drapes covering every wall. She only knew heavy black drapery covered the walls because she could see pieces of it through the talismans, which covered every inch of the drapes. There were other things as well: a few photos pinned to the walls, several handwritten letters she couldn’t read, and shelves.

  There were many shelves, all covered with the same black drapery. On these shelves sat framed photos, skulls, and more candles—red, black, and white this time—but it was the talismans that drew her attention.

  The sheer number stunned her.

  Nikki didn’t know what they symbolized, but she knew they were powerful, the dominant authority in the room. It took her a moment to realize that the instant she entered this back room, her head stopped pounding and the pressure eased from behind her left eye. Blinking to clear her vision, Nikki sat in the offered seat.

  “I see my collection interests you,” Narciso said in that same bland voice that belied the power in this room.

  And that was when she realized how much energy vibrated around her. And how her demon responded. The demon clawed closer to the surface; she felt it but for once wasn’t frightened. It responded to this energy, but not in a way that wanted to break free; it was in a snarling, fighting hiss of power that told Nikki her demon didn’t like it in here, either.

  It was the talismans, she realized suddenly. The talismans made her feel uncomfortable—Al hated them, but why? What did they mean?

  Through the howling of Al and the pounding of something in this room, Nikki struggled to remember what Taima had said about the demons and the Anasazi. They’d imbued their warriors with supernatural strength—hadn’t that been it?

  But she was no warrior. She’d been a baby when she’d been cursed.

  Oh, God. That’s what those talismans were. They covered the walls and lay on shelves and hung as some sort of trophy. A trophy to all those the Carillos, or this Narciso, had cursed.

  “What has drawn you to me?” Narciso asked in that thin voice, easily sitting in the chair opposite. He moved so smoothly, Nikki wondered if he had bones.

  “How many are there?” Nikki asked, waving to the talismans lining the walls.

  Within her, Al howled again, a feral thrashing sound desperate to break free. Jaw clenched, she leaned forward, her palms flat on the table and fingers pressed into the hard surface. Nikki fought for control, fought this ferocious need to claw and fight.

  Al tore to the surface and no matter how Nikki struggled to control it, and herself, how she wanted to push it deep inside her, it wanted to break free.

  “How many?” she snarled, unable to stop herself. She was losing herself to the demon. “How many have you killed?”

  Narciso’s smile grew and sent a chill down her spine. Al’s howl grew louder, closer to the surface.

  “Apparently,” he said, his green eyes glinting in the candlelight, “one less than I thought.”

  Snarling, unsure if it was her or the demon, Nikki dug her nails into the cloth-covered tabletop. “This is an interesting method for an assassin,” Nikki spat. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to shoot your victims?”

  “I was paid,” Narciso said, his accent deeper now than when he’d first greeted them. Nikki felt the pull of his voice, and a part of her that was still her wondered if he had some kind of freaky hypnosis power. “And paid well, to make them suffer. A bullet is entirely too easy.”

  His eyes flitted to the left, over one wall of talismans, as if he knew exactly which one belonged to her. He looked back at her, his head tilted to the side, and he studied her like a lab specimen. “You seem to have a control you shouldn’t.”

  Nikki scowled; she didn’t want to give this bastard anything. But the demon seethed right below the surface, waiting….waiting. It wanted to break free, and for only the second time in her life, Nikki wanted to let it do so.

  “I’ve wanted to meet you for some time,” he continued smoothly, as if unaware of the danger he faced. “And now here you are.”

  She shoved the chair back and stood, desperate to put distance between them. Oh, she still wanted answers, but she needed space, needed to move, to expel some of the energy threatening to explode.

  There were too many talismans to see them all, to study each one in turn until she found hers, but Nikki scanned the walls anyway, drawn to them. “Do you know which one?” she asked, but instantly knew the answer to her question. Looking over her shoulder, she narrowed her eyes at him. “You don’t, do you?” she spat. “You don’t carve the names of your victims on them.”

  Narciso stood, moving across the room in that same boneless way as before. “Stay away from them,” he snapped, hovering over her in a very threatening manner.

  But Nikki didn’t feel threatened. In fact, she’d never felt calmer. It was an odd feeling, not the calmness itself but to feel so menacing a setting. Coldly gazing up at him, she asked in a steady voice, “Which one is mine?”

  Her eyes dropped to his chest, where he wore a necklace. A rectangle of wood hung from the chain with symbols or hieroglyphs. No, Nikki realized as she studied the small item. They weren’t anything like that; they were pictographs, and the symbols looked very much like those Cooper described flashed on her face.

  In a blink, Nikki reached out; her hand wrapped around the talisman, and she pulled. The chain snapped, and Narciso’s transformation was instantaneous.

  Markings completely covered him. Nikki stumbled back a step, pushing back or out of self-preservation, she didn’t know. In the instant before he moved, Nikki knew the markings covering him were very much like those Cooper had described to her.

  His eyes, such a vivid green now, stared at her utterly black. She hadn’t seen his eyes change, didn’t know if that change had been gradual or immediate, but all traces of green had been replaced by pitch black.

  The contrast was startling since it was only the pupils, not the entire eyes, that had changed; his face was covered in red-orange and black war paint. Nikki couldn’t make out what kind of animal he’d transformed into, but it was deformed, with long, vicious fangs.

  Had Cooper said anything about her eyes? Nikki couldn’t remember.

  She had no more time to think on it because Narciso changed. Stumbling back another few steps, she tried to get out of his way. Not just the tattoo markings or war paint or whatever the hell it was, he’d morphed. There was no other word for it and no other way she could describe it.

  The talismans rattled around her, and she realized she’d backed into the wall, trapped, with Narciso closing steadily in on her. From the corner of her eye, she saw the curtain move and knew Cooper had entered the room. Had Narciso seen him as well?

  Since entering this shop, Nikki had struggled to keep her demon at bay, to keep it contained. Narciso looked to the left, and Nikki knew he saw Cooper. Whatever bonds she used to hold Al contained within her, Nikki consciously released.

  Rage engulfed her; a terrifying scream of freed anger escaped her lips. For a heartbeat, when she looked across the r
oom she knew which rectangular object, of the thousands lining the walls, belonged to her. But then she was the demon, a living, breathing, angry thing with only one thought—protect Cooper.

  Narciso had a small axe, a hatchet of some sort. He turned and lunged for Cooper, but her lover leapt out of the way, yanking the curtain sash with him. Cooper wound the sash around Narciso’s throat and pulled tight with both hands. Nikki stopped for a bare heartbeat, but didn’t even try to restrain the demon. She stalked forward, intent on her prey, prepared to kill the man who threatened her lover.

  Before she reached them, Narciso flipped Cooper. A small, still-human part of Nikki knew the other man had incredible strength—demon strength. Cooper landed hard on his back but immediately rolled to the side, out of Narciso’s way.

  Using that distraction to her advantage, Nikki tackled Narciso. They flew into the opposite wall with a bang that knocked the wind from both of them. The hatchet clattered to the floor, but she couldn’t find it to kick it away. It didn’t matter; neither needed a weapon for this fight.

  In fact, Nikki preferred it this way.

  With her hands wrapped around Narciso’s throat, she saw the different colored markings over his neck. Cooper had described hers as black, but these were red, blood red, and looked as if they shifted, dripping with literal blood.

  She saw them then, not as they were, not even she and Narciso. She saw her demon, indistinct and fluid in her mind, but knew it was hers. In this vision, her demon and his locked in a physical fight much as they were now. Dressed in the clothing of the ancient Indians she’d read about, they fought each other over and over, each trying to gain the upper hand. Nikki didn’t understand it all, but she knew her demon fought Narciso’s.

  To the death.

  This was her enemy. And she’d win over it, no matter how long it took.

  The demon was malicious and immoral, or at least her demon believed it to be. But it was Narciso who was the true instrument of evil for her people. It was he who orchestrated all this, who cursed her with Al, who cursed thousands with a demon they couldn’t control.